Georges fault? Who he created Homeland-Security or Home-Wate-of-money.
The ultimate bureacracy!!!

AP Enterprise: 9/11 thefts not prosecuted 

NEW YORK - Once-secret documents obtained by The Associated Press show a 
disaster supply management company went unpunished for Sept. 11 thefts 
after the government discovered 
       
FBI agents and other government officials had stolen artifacts from New 
York's ground zero. 

Kieger Enterprises of Lino Lakes, Minn., dispatched trucks to a Long Island 
warehouse and loaded hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of donated 
bottled water, clothes, tools and generators to be moved to Minnesota in a 
plot to sell some for profit, according to government records and 
interviews.

Dan L'Allier said he witnessed 45 tons of the New York loot being unloaded 
in Minnesota at his company's headquarters. He and disaster specialist 
Chris Christopherson complained to a company executive, but were ordered to 
keep quiet. They persisted, going instead to the FBI.

The two whistleblowers eventually lost their jobs, received death threats 
and were blackballed in the disaster relief industry. But they remained 
convinced their sacrifice was worth seeing justice done.

They were wrong.
As a result, most Americans were kept in the dark about a major fraud 
involving their donated goods even as new requests for charity emerged with 
disasters like Hurricane Katrina. And Christopherson and L'Allier were left 
disillusioned.

"I wouldn't open my mouth again for all the tea in China," L'Allier said. 
Added Christopherson, a 34-year-old father of two: "I paid a big price."

As firefighters searched for survivors after the Sept. 11 attacks, heat 
from the World Trade Center's smoldering ruins burned the soles off their 
boots. They needed new ones every few hours, and Christopherson made sure 
they got them. The moment that crushed Christopherson's faith was when his 
employer dispatched the trucks to the warehouse for those supplies, donated 
by Americans.

The government ultimately gave the whistleblowers $30,000 each after 
expenses, their share in a civil settlement against KEI. They say the sum 
was hardly worth their trouble.

Federal prosecutors eventually charged KEI and some executives with fraud, 
including overbilling the government in several disasters, but excluded the 
Sept. 11 thefts. Officially, the government can't fully explain why.

KEI had worked for years for the government, providing disaster relief 
services during tornadoes, floods and other catastrophes. It was picked to 
manage the New York warehouse for the government's main Sept. 11 relief 
contractor.

Thomas Heffelfinger, the former U.S. attorney in Minnesota who prosecuted 
KEI, said he never intended to charge the company for the ground zero 
theft, and instead referred that part of the case to prosecutors in New 
York.

"At the heart of the KEI case was financial fraud," Heffelfinger said. "It 
was so bad we didn't need the theft."

Heather Tasker, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in New York, 
declined to discuss the KEI case. The whistleblowers, however, said they've 
never been contacted by New York prosecutors.

FBI documents indicate the government, in fact, was preparing to charge KEI 
with Sept. 11 thefts.

A March 2002 entry in the FBI's "prosecutive status" report states the U.S. 
Attorney's office in Minnesota intended "to prosecute individuals who were 
alleged to be involved in the transportation of stolen goods from New York 
City after the terrorist attack." A followup entry from Sept. 6, 2002 lists 
the specific evidence supporting such a charge.

The lead investigators for the FBI and the Federal Emergency Management 
Agency told AP that the plan to prosecute KEI for those thefts stopped as 
soon as it became clear in late summer 2002 that an FBI agent in Minnesota 
had stolen a crystal globe from ground zero.

That prompted a broader review that ultimately found 16 government 
employees, including a top FBI executive and Defense Secretary Donald H. 
Rumsfeld, had such artifacts from New York or the Pentagon. 

"How could you secure an indictment?" FEMA investigator Kirk Beauchamp 
asked. "It would be a conflict." 

While the globe's discovery had been widely reported, its impact on the 
Sept. 11 thefts had remained mostly unknown. 

Prosecutors "and the FBI were very conscious of the fact that if they 
proceeded in one direction, they would have to proceed in the other, which 
meant prosecuting FBI agents," said Jane Turner, the lead FBI agent. She 
too became a whistleblower alleging the bureau tried to fire her for 
bringing the stolen artifacts to light. Turner retired in 2003. 

The FBI declined to discuss Turner's allegation, saying it involved a 
personnel matter. 

"It's illogical" not to prosecute KEI because of the agents' stolen 
artifacts, said E. Lawrence Barcella, former chief of major crimes in the 
U.S. attorney's office in Washington. "The fact that FBI agents stole 
trinkets is an order of magnitude different than a company selling things 
they steal." 

Nick Gess, another former federal prosecutor, said the agents' actions 
shouldn't have precluded prosecuting the company. 

"DEA agents have been found to smoke pot occasionally," Gess said. "That 
doesn't mean they (the Drug Enforcement Administration) can't still work on 
drug cases." 

The government also didn't prosecute any of its employees for taking 
souvenirs, claiming it lacked a policy prohibiting such thefts. 

Ultimately, the FBI donated the stolen goods found at KEI's warehouse to 
the Salvation Army. 

Joe Friedberg, a lawyer who represented a KEI executive, dismissed the 
Sept. 11 thefts as "much ado about nothing." Friedberg said KEI took a few 
pallets of water and T-shirts because they had authorization from a FEMA 
official to take surplus items. 

But that FEMA official, Kathy McCoy, said she never gave Kieger such 
permission. 

Those who work near ground zero today are shocked to learn such thefts went 
unpunished. 

"To take advantage of people at a time of despair, it's probably one of the 
worst things human beings can do to another person," said Gregory Broms, 
Sr., a firefighter with Engine Company 10 at the foot of the former World 
Trade Center site. "It was morally wrong." 

Christopherson recalled receiving boxes of white T-shirts stolen from the 
Long Island warehouse sent back to him after KEI had embossed a Sept. 11 
logo on the front. He was instructed by his boss to sell them to 
firefighters, police and volunteers for $12 a piece. Disgusted, he threw 
them in the corner and never sold them. 

Christopherson and L'Allier went to the FBI in fall 2001. On April 16, 
2002, agents raided KEI, recovering at least 15,000 T-shirts and 18,000 
bottles of bottled water. Because months had passed, the seized items were 
a fraction of the total the company had taken, the whistleblowers said. 

Both men were threatened and harassed, reporting it to the FBI's 
Turner. "We all experienced the death threats," L'Allier said. "We all 
experienced the phone ringing at three in the morning and no one being 
there. I'd come home and the house would be wide open." 

A few months after the raid, prosecutors drafted charges accusing the 
company of stealing the ground zero relief supplies, seeking an indictment 
on the one-year anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Turner said. 

But Turner discovered in late August 2002 a cracked Tiffany & Co. globe — 
lifted from the World Trade Center ruins — on the desk of a colleague. The 
theft case against KEI sputtered. 

Eventually, KEI executives Edward Kieger Jr., Patrick Iwan and Joseph 
Dreshar were indicted in 2004 by a federal grand jury on charges of 
scheming to defraud the government. The former executives pleaded guilty, 
and Kieger and Iwan are serving prison terms. KEI has gone out of business. 

Christopherson and L'Allier were stunned when the indictment excluded the 
ground zero thefts. They spent two years unsuccessfully trying to find new 
work in disaster relief. Christopherson now runs a landscaping business; 
L'Allier works as a paramedic. 

For years, the two couldn't speak publicly because their whistleblower case 
remained under seal. They worried similar fraud might have occurred during 
Katrina. 

"If you donated, at your local supermarket, water or canned goods or 
cleaning supplies and a truck goes down there (to New Orleans), who knows 
where it is ending up," L'Allier. 

Today, the whistleblowers worry their fate might chill others from exposing 
wrongdoing. 

"They felt they had to come forward about the theft because it was so 
wrong," Turner said. "I've lost my career. They've lost their jobs. The 
price is so high for telling the truth." 

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